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Lazor posted:I agree with the post above saying we should have varying licenses for the larger SUVs and trucks because they are harder to drive and putting just any driver behind the wheel becomes a danger ... a small car up to Mazda5 size would satisfy that need for the vast majority of the population and if they really need a truck then they could get licensed for it. I suggested almost this exact scheme once while hanging out with some friends, and got called a communist  MATLAB 1988 posted:Automakers already complain that the millennial generation isn't buying and that they care more about their cellphones than driving. I read an article a while back where they interviewed a bunch of kids (well, 16-25 year olds) about what they wanted in a new car and nearly all of them were most concerned with how well it integrated with their iPhone/iPad whatever. The big quote I remember was something like "my whole life is on my iPhone, so my car is really just an iPhone accessory." I know those responses are basically designed to piss of auto enthusiasts, but still. I would also question whether modern kids really get the same experience out of a car as people did in the past. The roads are denser, the cars are more automated, the fines and by-laws are stricter, and the cost of ownership is going through the roof. There's hardly any way anymore that a kid can find a junker, fix it up in the back yard on money he saved from the pizza place, and cruise around with his friends on empty farm roads. [e] BonzoESC posted:What triggered the CEL isn't necessarily a root cause, and honestly, I'd much rather it was just a sad face and a trip to the mechanic than something scary involving "manifolds" or "cats." Cars aren't just for gear heads. But some cars are, so how about a system where you can choose either "sad face" idiot light or a "debug" mode with more detailed information? Computers have worked like that for decades now. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Mar 3, 2012 |
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Mar 3, 2012 16:51
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PT6A posted:Canada has a lot of regulations for new cars that don't apply to cars that aren't being sold as new (DRLs, just as an example), and I see no reason why this regulation would suddenly be applied retroactively and include mandated camera inspections. As written, it is JUST about equipment installed on new cars. True that if you have an old Canadian car without DRLs you don't need to get them installed. However, if you IMPORT an identical car from the USA, and it's less than 15 years old, you have to meet a large number of regulations that the Canadian car gets waived. DRLs must be installed and functional, also a child seat anchor point and hardware kit, a metric odometer label, dual-language airbag stickers, and a few other things I can't remember. And if the car is newer than 2007 it has to have an electronic immobilizer installed, regardless of original equipment. Now, not every inspection centre will actually know all these things or indeed even care about their presence (usually it's just DRLs and whether the air bags work), but that is the letter of the law. But my point is that there are absolutely examples of legislation that requires you to arbitrarily retrofit new features onto an old car. (I will admit that it is nice that in Canada you can get anything more than 15 years old on the road with very little hassle -- just has to have a VIN and pass a provincial safety inspection) Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Mar 3, 2012 |
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Mar 3, 2012 17:25
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Throatwarbler posted:Here's a video of the BMW tri-turbo system. "In the upper rev range..." *tachometer indicates 2600 RPM* Oh, diesels
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Mar 3, 2012 18:14
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PT6A posted:Why shouldn't cars integrate nicely with electronic devices? Again, it doesn't compromise the experience of the auto enthusiast in any meaningful fashion, and if a tiny weight gain bothers you, just rip the entire loving stereo system out. I don't understand the sentiment around here that you have to like stripped-down, optionless cars to be an enthusiast. Well, that was the point. They asked the people what their MOST important feature was in a new car, and a majority of them said "iPhone integration". Above fuel economy, performance, comfort, or anything else that has to do with the actual vehicle's functionality. Sure, it's nice to have your car integrate with the electronic device of your choice, but it's just kind of sad to see people literally treating their vehicle like a big rolling iPhone accessory. It also seems to imply that while driving they're putting most of their attention on the iPhone, not the road. Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uesxF3UoaYE Oh, and this too Hashal posted:Just because some people may not use a feature, don't mean it should excluded. Yeah. It's disingenuous to say "well it takes so much training to understand the meaning of CEL codes that we should just hide them from anybody but the professionals." First, there are plenty of people like myself who are not professional mechanics but can do the majority of the work their car requires themselves; second, some people might want to learn these things, and preventing them from doing it for their own good or whatever is just retarded. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Mar 3, 2012 |
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Mar 3, 2012 21:47
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Nitrox posted:By doing the work yourself, you are not paying money to the dealership service center. Why in the world would they help themselves lose money? It pays to keep the car as inaccessible as possible so you're forced to go back. Some manufacturers go as far as to design special fasteners and service items that could not be removed/accessed without dealership-specific tools. They sure do. And you support this? You think it's just generally a good idea to use proprietary fasteners and service tools instead of standardized items that you could get anywhere? Stealth Like posted:I agree, it's annoying that my car has bluetooth for making phone calls. It'd be much easier if all I had to do was reach into my pocket and pull out my phone while sitting, unlock my phone, goto my contacts and call the person I want to talk to while having a hand off the steering wheel. All the studies done on this show that the problem is not where your hands are, but the fact that your brain is engaged with the phone instead of the road. Driving with one hand on the wheel doesn't affect your ability to pay attention to the task, but yelling at your kids or whatever does. This should be obvious. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Mar 4, 2012 |
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Mar 4, 2012 02:03
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Stealth Like posted:They're going to make phone calls anyway so it might as well be made safer, just like they're going to pick it up when people call them. Some people have the ability to do more than one thing at a time (like listen to music!). I would 100% support a hypothetical system to block all cell phone usage by the driver of a car. Pull the gently caress over. Listening to music is a really poor comparison, too -- it doesn't take the focus or creative mental effort that maintaining a conversation does. A better example would be yelling at your kids or answering a quiz game or something.
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Mar 4, 2012 02:14
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Stealth Like posted:I honestly don't see how people can be so against cell phones or whatever, but be perfectly fine with cars having passengers in them. And is maintaining a conversation really that taxing for you? It's a good question. Studies show that maintaining a conversation with a passenger does decrease your road attentiveness somewhat, but not that seriously...whereas driving while talking on the phone is comparable to driving drunk. Maybe it's the nature of the conversation? Chatting offhandedly to a passenger doesn't require the same focus as talking on the phone with a specific purpose? Maybe you could compare the cell phone to having a serious conversation with your passenger about the upcoming business meeting or whatever. Personally, I normally have no problem having conversations with my passengers, but there are a few times where I've gotten into a more complicated or heated discussion with them and run a stop sign or stopped at a green light. All this "it's my right, I can do it, you all just aren't good multitaskers  " poo poo is just being willfully ignorant of the realities. If you don't have 100% of your attention on the road, no matter where the attention is going, you are reducing your ability to drive. Period.
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Mar 4, 2012 03:22
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Cream_Filling posted:I also can't stand people who call you up from their car phones just to chat because they're bored while driving around town or something. Good lord, this. Or the people who won't take "yeah, I'm on the road right now" as a cue to shut up and call back later. I already can barely hear you because of my busted-rear end speakerphone, and now you want to just have a random conversation? Wait until I arrive already.
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Mar 5, 2012 21:52
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Friar Zucchini posted:The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Read about a new car you hate? Post it here, in the news-thread! You know perfectly well that it's going to be the best-selling car they've ever produced. And I'll be honest -- as much as I dislike the car itself, I kind of dig the turbine thing they have going on in the fog lamps. I hope those spin. quote:Electric turbocharger that uses a clutched heat-driven generator to simplify exhaust plumbing and reduce turbo lag Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Mar 6, 2012 |
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Mar 6, 2012 17:44
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Ah, I see...the electric motor actually just prespools the turbine so it's always near operational speed, with the actual energy required for useful boost still coming from the exhaust. That seems a whole lot more reasonable. Sure isn't something I'd want to work on, though 
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Mar 6, 2012 17:53
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Somehow, I can't see the Bentley target market being the kind of people who'd hold tailgate parties, champagne flutes and sterling silver flatware or not.
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Mar 7, 2012 03:34
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Interesting. I don't normally like Infinitis, but when I do, I like them because they're all-electric cars with a three-cylinder Lotus range extender. This one claims to go 0-60 in 4 seconds and it's the first Infiniti I've ever seen that has styling that cannot be described as "blasé". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17190806 (best quote: "In terms of performance, it's somewhere between a Porsche Cayenne and a McLaren MP4-12C"  )
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Mar 7, 2012 04:03
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Mr. Apollo posted:Porsche has a 7 speed manual and 7 speed dual clutch transmission in the new 911. See, this pattern makes sense, because it's basically a regular 3-way H pattern with an extra locked-out location on each end for reverse and mega-overdrive. The one in the new Corvette seems like it'd be really easy to miss a shift.
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Jan 15, 2013 22:51
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On further inspection -- is the whole 7-R leg locked out unless you do something special? If that's the case, it would make sense to me. But if 7 is directly accessible from all gears, then you have four distinct L-R positions instead of just three, all accessible at any time, and that would seem to make it a lot easier to miss a shift. You'd have to be able to stop at a "midpoint" that wasn't the actual middle, whereas with three legs you just have full left/full right/no pressure. If 7 and R are on their own little track that you can't access in normal shifting, then yeah it's just the same as any other 6-speed with R off to the side and that's fine. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jan 16, 2013 |
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Jan 16, 2013 01:52
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At some point the returns probably become so little, and the engine lifetime so short, that you'd just go "gently caress it, solid rocket boosters are the way to go". Pretty easy with something like that to get accleration on the order of 10-15G, even with a package weighing upwards of 1000kg.
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Jan 18, 2013 00:55
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I think reliability is the problem, here. The more power you extract from a given displacement (primarily through forced induction I'd guess), the more stress the engine is under. I just posted in another thread earlier today -- you can get 400 horsepower from a 1.8 high-compression 4-banger with an enormous turbo and intercooler setup, or you can get it from a bigass cast-iron pushrod V8 running pump gas if it just so happens to displace about 8 litres. The V8 is the one that's going to last a lot longer on the street, though. The really impressive thing about the Veyron isn't the power it makes, that it's daily-driveable if you were rich and insane enough to do so. If you twincharged the Veyron (quad-charged? octo-charged? gently caress knows) and ran it on pure nitromethane you'd be getting up into top fuel numbers, but also top fuel engine lifetimes.
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Jan 18, 2013 02:16
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God, Alfas are the prettiest cars. No sarcasm at all.
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Jan 19, 2013 10:21
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MrChips posted:Hot shotting is on-demand shipping for critical items. A private courier, as the educated classes would say.
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Jan 23, 2013 03:30
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Das Volk posted:Here's a question for the people who actually paid attention in school: Is there any reason a battery can't simply have a liquid exchange take place at a fueling station? Exchanging a liquid in a depleted chemical state for a recharged one, then re-charging the depleted liquid? That would solve this whole charging time problem. That's more or less what a fuel cell is, actually. As Snowdens Secret says, the actual reaction in a lead-acid is turning the lead plates back and forth to different lead compounds, with the sulfate ions in the electrolyte participating in the reaction. If you could replace all the exhausted reactants in one operation, yes, you would "recharge" the battery instantly. The first step to making that easy is to use a non-participatory electrolyte, like a proton exchange membrane, so that all you have to replace are the anode and the cathode. Then you work out a system where the physical anode and cathode don't participate either, so that you don't have to be taking the battery apart -- just adding new chemicals. A good way to do that is to make the electrodes out of a fine, porous mesh. Then you just pipe in the reactants to each side in liquid or gas form, and hey presto, you have a battery that can be instantly recharged. A fuel cell. There are also some laboratory prototypes that work more literally as you're describing; for instance, an aluminum cell that combines aluminum dust and water to produce aluminum oxide and hydrogen for a fuel cell. When the aluminum is fully reacted, you take out the cartridge of aluminum oxide and send it back to the refinery for reprocessing, and plug in a new cartridge of elemental dust. Interesting idea, but I still don't think it's quite the way of the future. In my mind that belongs to bioethanol/biomethanol and the direct-hydrocarbon fuel cell.
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Jan 23, 2013 10:57
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KozmoNaut posted:Actually, I think most of them are rebranding themselves as "energy companies" and funding research into alternative energy sources. I have a friend who worked for Shell's alternative energy division, and he said it was almost entirely a marketing program. Their division was tiny and underfunded, even compared to the other research divisions; Shell spent way more money studying new ways of mining oil than on actual alternative energy. The only reason it existed at all was because the Shell voodoo economists determined that it would be worth spending so and so many dollars to generate corporate goodwill with the hippies and politically active ecologists and the like. If not for that, they wouldn't give a rat's rear end about any other energy sources.  but trueE: and I agree with kosmonaut that the only viable solution is a biofuel infrastructure feeding direct-hydrocarbon fuel cells. Gasoline is the queen of liquid fuels because it has an incredible energy density but is easy to transport and handle. Ethanol and methanol aren't far behind. Even if there's a breakthrough in battery technology, batteries and plugins won't be anything but a stopgap unless we rebuild the entire electrical grid to handle the load of millions of cars charging simultaneously. And that isn't going to happen without superconductors that don't yet exist and massive investment. We already have the infrastructure to handle and dispense liquid fuels extremely effectively; all we need is a way to manufacture them from renewable sources and "burn" them more efficiently. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 22:43
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Hydraulics still have the advantage in power:weight ratio, though. With a single central pump and some steel lines and pistons, you can create an immense amount of force at a bunch of different locations simultaneously with far less weight penalty than electrical actuators at each corner. They're also infinitely variable, inherently analog systems -- no fancy PWM or steppers or anything required to get a smooth range of outputs. Also, hydraulic brakes still work even if the ECU and other electrical systems take a poo poo. It's always good to have some kind of backup that doesn't require electricity.
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Jan 24, 2013 03:26
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Q_res posted:I can't tell which is better this or the Ford commercial where they drive a Fusion off a cliff with the disclaimer "Do not attempt. Cars cannot fly." I've heard that essentially the entire reason that ads have to have those dumb disclaimers is because of the shitbird who tried to get the Harrier that Pepsi showed in one commercial as a joke prize if you collected 7 million bottle caps. He didn't get it, obviously, and then sued the company for breach of contract, wasting an enormous amount of time and money on everyone's part. So you can thank John Leonard of Seattle for demonstrating to advertisers just how phenomenally stupid and greedy the average American is.
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Feb 3, 2013 20:48
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Engine bay accessibility is not a design goal on a Mercedes-Benz minivan.
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Nov 7, 2015 18:43
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tobu posted:
So a Toiata, basically.
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Nov 13, 2015 02:00
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Will current TDI owners be able to opt out of the retune?
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Nov 16, 2015 04:03
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I thought that every single automotive award was bought and sold. And I thought everyone knew this.
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Nov 18, 2015 03:00
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Christobevii3 posted:If you drove a new Acura with the computer lagging gas pedal you'd hate Acura. They do it to make them drive like a 70s Lincoln but is terrifying to feel gas pedal lag when passing. I have heard that the throttle lag is partly for emissions. If you can virtually feather the throttle all the time, or at least avoid the zero-to-WOT situation where the AFR gets all messed up for a second, you can eke out an extra percent or two. Stick that map on the default mode, put the normal mapping on the "sport" mode that is "tuned for extra responsiveness" and no one even knows the difference.
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Nov 21, 2015 07:34
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I can't believe how many pages you two guys (and only you two) have been having this pissing match.
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Nov 21, 2015 19:14
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:I've lived in Wisconsin my whole life and I've found that snow tires are just plain unnecessary for the type of car you're likely to be DDing. I've never gotten stuck, gone into a slide, or anything else on plain old all seasons. Swapping out your wheels twice a year is a pain in the rear end, and if you're staying within a reasonable percentage of the speed limit you're almost never going to need the extra grip unless it's so snowy that the visibility should keep you from driving anyway. Yeah, this was my grandpa's attitude, living in eastern Canada his whole life. "I don't need snow tires, I've been driving for fifty years and never had any problems in the winter, it's a waste of money." Then, after we finally convinced him: "Holy poo poo! These tires really work in the snow, you know that?" I think you're just plain foolish for conflating "extra grip" with the speed you're going, too. The ground traction doesn't change whether you're going a hundred miles an hour or ten, just the results of the accident. Maybe you have a different idea of "so snowy that it keeps you from driving" than most people do. Oh, and changing out the wheels is nothing. You pay once for a set of tires and four cheap steelies, and it takes half an hour with a breaker bar and torque wrench to change the wheels over in your driveway. Swapping all three of our cars' wheels for the snow tires started being one of my chores when I was like 13 years old and it still would only take an afternoon. KillHour posted:Seriously? Is there an official statement about that? Because lol. I wouldn't be surprised. When I moved to California, I had to take the written portion of the motorcycle test to convert my out-of-state license over. I got three questions wrong, all of them about lane positioning, because when I learned to ride I was taught about all the different situations that require you to be on either the left or right side of the lane for safety. Preventing cars from trying to share your lane, riding in the tire track of the vehicle ahead because it's swept clean of glass, and avoiding the center of the lane in general because it has all the oil and coolant splotches. I got all of the lane positioning questions wrong because in California you are apparently supposed to ride in the middle of the lane, always. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Nov 24, 2015 |
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Nov 24, 2015 19:23
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:I drove a miata for the last 10 years. For the first 6, I used snows every winter. It was a pain in the rear end. I switched to just using nice all-seasons and it had 0 impact upon my ability to drive. The only time I felt like the all-seasons were worse than the snows were when it was a near white-out and I probably shouldn't have been on the road anyway. Like I said, maybe you have a different idea of how much snow is too much. If you live in the mid-atlantic or something I can totally understand. Here's what an average road on an average winter day looks like in my hometown:  That's well after the plows have been by (they come out at around 4AM). No, your Miata does NOT handle just as well on all-seasons as it would on snow tires in those conditions. Here's a highway:  Is that entire chain of cars back there a bunch of idiots who shouldn't even be on the road? This is just how the roads work in some parts of the world. If you're in Virginia and the kids get a snow day when there's half an inch on the ground then fine, you don't need to worry about snow tires, but we're arguing two different points. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Nov 25, 2015 |
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Nov 25, 2015 18:01
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I think the Volt range-extended-electric concept is the way to go in the USA, personally. There's a weight and space penalty for carrying around two engines, sure, but other than that it gets you an electric commuter car without having to give up spontaneous detours and road trips. I know Tesla's all in for the electric future, but I bet they'd sell the crap out of a model with a 30kWh pack good for about 100 miles, and the extra space filled with a 5-gallon gas tank and microturbine for extended cruising.
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Dec 5, 2015 23:56
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blk posted:
That thing looks like it has the viewing angles of a T-55.
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Dec 9, 2015 04:41
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Mazda should just build the Furai again.
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Dec 9, 2015 04:54
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I learned that the new NSX has nine speeds in its transmission. Why?
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Dec 12, 2015 08:10
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That's most motorcyclists' brake usage, I would assume. Low mass and high compression is a nice combination.
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Dec 13, 2015 20:03
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Christobevii3 posted:http://www.autoblog.com/2007/04/19/iihs-names-chevrolet-blazer-most-likely-to-kill/ Interesting that the Nissan 350Z is one of the deadliest cars, but the Infiniti G35 is one of the safest. Boy racers 
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Jan 16, 2016 01:11
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LeftistMuslimObama posted:I've seen at least one new looking lhd kawasaki car rolling around my town. It baffles me. Where are you located? Maybe your town has the one remaining Kawasaki (car) dealer in north america.
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Jan 19, 2016 04:52
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The new NSX does it as well. Two electric motors in the front, one on each wheel, so it can steer like a Segway.
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Jan 21, 2016 03:04
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If you use a fully locked 4WD setup (like an old army jeep, all wheels turning the same rate) on the highway, does it actually damage the drivetrain or does it just rip up the tires?
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Jan 21, 2016 04:37
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I have quit listening to car companies talking about the electric cars they're planning to build. I've especially quit listening to Tesla doing this. Show me one on the road and give a firm purchase price. Tesla is only announcing this to try and cut off any press that GM is getting about the Bolt, etc. "Uh we totally have that too! Just you wait and see!" is not a car.
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Jan 29, 2016 06:53
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